Let's take a look back at our On the Scene video series that documented the import car culture from the height of the car show days to the birth of drifting.

Chasing the Touge

This was our final video in the On the Scene series, and we were fascinated by the mountain passes, or "Touge", as they referred to it in Japan. We chose to follow 3 groups in their automotive pursuits and for over 6 months we had a chance to document this in our video.

The first was the Gravel Crew who were rally enthusiast using the mountains to hone their skills and tune their cars. Next was Formula D drifter, Calvin Wan, who in his early days use the Touge to learn and immerse himself into the sport of drifting. And finally the M7 Mini crew who created products and tuned cars tested against the mountains.

The experience we were a part of will always stay with us. From late night touge runs to racing battles on the track, we appreciate all those who opened up their world to us.

Drift Battle

Drifting was exploding among the import car scene, we saw an influx of professional Japanese drivers come over to the USA bringing their style, speed, and insane drifting technique.

In our 4th installment, we head to Hawaii where the locals have been drifting for years, we brought 2 of the top D1 drivers in Kazama and Kumakubo to showoff their Drift Xtreme brand. These cats put on an insane demonstration at Hawaii raceway track and burned rubber all night long.

The first Drift Showoff series came to a conclusion at Irwindale speedway as we watch some U.S. stars including Rhys Millen and Dai Yoshihara battle for the championship. Followed by an All-star team of Drift Extreme arriving in their stretch Limo highlighted by Ueo considered by many to be the best AE86 drifter in the world.

On the Scene 3: Drift USA

From the previous On the Scene, we could see that drag racing and car shows were quickly giving way to the sport of drifting. Popular in Japan for many years, it was going to give a much needed adrenaline shot to the import scene.

Drift Showoff would be the first major drift event that brought over the Japanese D1 drivers and expose it to the US market. Falken tires would be on center stage and brought Koguchi and Yamamoto. Meanwhile Signal Auto would feature Drifter X who was featured in the issue of a national magazine.

Though the japanese stars would be the highlight of the event, it gave us a look at what would be some of the new drifting stars in America. Including Rhys Millen doing his 4 wheel drift in his EVO and local legends like Alex Pfeiffer and Benson Hsu.

On the Scene 2: Fully Loaded

This was the import scene in full effect. Car shows, street racing, import models, drag racing, and more. It was an exciting time where numerous car shows toured the USA and brought together thousands of enthusiast at huge events.

We spent the time traveling across the country to document the latest shows, trends, and hottest modified cars. Though Los Angeles was the hotbed of the import automotive scene, it was exciting to see it quickly spread across the country in popularity.